PITTWOOD, Ill. – On Oct. 21, the Slow Boys Antique Tractor and Engine Club had a corn picking day on the edge of Pittwood. The town has a population of around 100 people and the show was held on 30 acres farmed by Art and Corinne Downs. The day was clear and windy, and a small crowd gathered for some corn picking fun.

This was their 6th picker day. They lost one year to COVID, and one to weather. Art Downs is a recognizable figure to those in the antique tractor pulling community. Art has been announcing tractor pulls for years. “I have been announcing at the Illinois State Fair for 16-18 years.”

Art said he doesn’t travel quite as far anymore to announce tractor pulls, but, “I do this for three nights at Pinckneyville too.”

Art said he got started announcing when he was at a garden tractor pull and they needed an announcer. “The first time I got paid for announcing was in 1970 at the Ford County Fair,” Art said.

Members of the Slow Boys Antique Tractor and Engine Club came to the event. “Art is the president of the Slow Boys club,” Corinne shared.

She was busy setting up food for the luncheon, but she said while she chose not to drive, she can, “Drive most anything!”

“We rent 30 acres and hobby farm,” Art said. “I do this plow day in the spring. Then have the Picker Day in the fall. There are lots of guys that collect and have nowhere to use their equipment (except he remembered at the recent Half Century of Progress). I plant wide rows so guys can use it to pick corn.

“My favorite aspect is harvest,” Art said. “I enjoyed picking ear corn as a kid.”

Besides running corn pickers on his day in Pittwood, Art said the club also does this at Pontiac and Geneseo’s AETA show. “And we go to Penfield’s Historic Farm Days to combine wheat,” he added.

Art estimated that there were four different brands of pickers. There was a Case, Oliver, Wood Brothers left-handed picker and a 2MH International mounted picker along with a New Idea sheller attachment.

The corn was picked. Then shelled and hauled to the local Pittwood Elevator. Action began around 9:30 a.m. It was all done about 3 p.m. Matt and David Hall, father and son, were helping, one running barge wagons to the sheller and back, the other taking grain to the elevator. “I am driving a John Deere 1953 50. I hooked and unhooked the barge wagons. I’m grunt labor,” Matt joked.

David Hall said, “I’m driving a 1982 John Deere 4440 and hauling to the local elevator.”

Wayne Becker had his 1958 D17 Allis Chalmers with 4,800 hours on hand. “It came out of the bottoms of Southern Illinois,” he shared, adding he had a funny story about the AC tractor. “The old farmer had used the tractor, and the local dealer wanted to sell him a new Series III D17.”

The farmer had his own ideas about how to get what he needed and help the dealer at the same time without spending a lot of cash. Becker shared. “The farmer said to the local dealer, ‘Ok you take mine, and paint it, put a decal on it, and cut an oval hole in the hood for the new muffler.’”

He added after the dealer would put a new muffler in, “Then I will set it out and my neighbors will think it is new.”

Becker also had his Oliver 73 Picker he bought out of a fence row. “I spent 40 hours getting it to pick two years ago.”

He had fond memories two years ago of picking with his late father, Marvin Becker. “He worked the whole day,” Becker recalled.

The hardest day for Becker since losing his dad was at the Half Century of Progress in Rantoul when he made the first pass without him on the tractor/picker combo. “I lost him in December. Dad was 91, he just wore out.”

Steve Eilers had his 1953 John Deere 50, and 1947 Woods Brothers picker. He didn’t have far to come, saying, “I only live a mile and a half away. My dad’s first picker was a Wood Brothers. It is the same age as me.”

The 50 has a sentimental tug because Eilers added the tractor was sold to him by the wife of Jess Trumble, a farmer that Eilers farmed with for 30 years. “He bought it new at Watseka Corn Belt Implement.”

Jerry Snedecor was on hand with his grandson, 8-year-old Deegan Thurston. Thurston was the youngest picker at the Picker Day. He shared that the 1951 Farmall M was his tractor. Deegan’s grandma said one day he looked at his grandpa and said, “What is going to happen to the tractor, you know?”

She said Thurston was very concerned about the fate of the M someday.

Donovon FFA kids were on hand helping. The Slow Boys have been donating to the local FFA, and they come out for events to help. During the show, one young woman was learning to drive a rare Gibson tractor.